that unconscious instruction.

_Vanity Fair._ A Novel without a Hero. By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE
THACKERAY. With Illustrations by the Author. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 3 vols. 12mo.

In the novels of Thackeray, essay is so much mixed up with narrative,
and comment with characterization, that they can hardly be thoroughly
appreciated in poor editions. The temptation to skip is almost
irresistible, when wisdom can be purchased only at the expense of
eyesight. We are therefore glad to welcome the commencement of a new
edition of his writings, over whose pages the reader can linger at his
pleasure, and quietly enjoy subtilties of humor and observation which in
previous perusals he overlooked. The present volumes, published by the
Harpers, are among the most tasteful and comely products of the
Cambridge University Press. Printed in large type on tinted paper,
elegantly bound in green cloth, and with a fac-simile of the author's
autograph on the cover, every copy has the appearance of being a
presentation copy. No English edition of "Vanity Fair" is equal to this
American one in respect either to convenience of form or beauty of
mechanical execution. The illustrations are numerous, well engraved, and
embody the writer's own conceptions of his scenes and characters, and
are often deliciously humorous.

"Vanity Fair," though it does not include the whole extent of
Thackeray's genius, is the most vigorous exhibition of its leading
characteristics. In freshness of feeling, elasticity of movement, and
unity of aim, it is favorably distinguished from its successors, which
too often give the impression of being composed of successive
accumulations of incidents and persons, that drift into the story on no
principle of artistic selection and combination. The style, while it has
the raciness of individual peculiarity and the careless ease of familiar
gossip, is as clear, pure, and flexible as if its sentences had been
subjected to repeated revision, and every pebble which obstructed its
lucid and limpid flow had been laboriously removed. The characterization
is almost perfect of its kind. Becky Sharp, the Marquis of Steyne, Sir
Pitt Crawley and the whole Crawley family, Amelia, the Osbornes, Major
Dobbin, not to mention others, are as well known to most cultivated
people as their most intimate acquaintances in the Vanity Fair of the
actual world. It has always seemed to us that Mr. Osborne, the father of
George, a rep